


Remember when

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Matt and Karen are now elders, and they like to remember their best moments together. Their children and grandchildren don’t, though</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember when

Karen loves looking at old pictures, because it reminds her of how things were back when she and Matt were younger. Her hair has now faded from bright red to white, and Matt started going grey at about age 40, which Karen has never stopped teasing him about. 

She has pictures of their time on  _Who,_ and every time Matt came and visited her in LA and every time she came to Cardiff. There’s their wedding album, and all of the baby photos, because since she started directing she’s been a bit obsessive about taking pictures and videos of things. 

Matt’s turning 70 and she’s 65, and all of their children have grandchildren, which is weird and wonderful. There’s Amelia, the oldest (because Karen and Matt had somehow resisted calling one of their children that), Mary, Jack, Sarah, and Francis. 

She and Matt love to tell stories. They’re actors. It’s how they function. It’s just that no one else seems to be interested. 

Robert, their younger son, and his wife Louise talk about their recent trip to Spain, and of course, they visited Almeria. Matt gets this dreamy look in his eyes, and Karen smiles at him from across the table. 

“Matt, do you remember when we were in Almeria all those years ago?” 

He was about to respond when Rose, their elder daughter shook her head. “How many times have we heard this story?” 

Amelia, who is the only grandchild to have inherited the ginger-ness, adds, “Can you believe they only had the iPhone 5 then?” 

So Matt and Karen stop reminiscing for that particular dinner. Later that night though, the nostalgia starts to get to Karen, so when all the children leave she grabs their box of old pictures and looks through them with a reverent joy. 

Matt comes and sits on the couch beside her, and watches her flip through those photos. “God, I miss Arthur,” he says, as she finds a photo of the three of them from the series 7 premiere. 

“Yeah,” Karen said, and had to wipe tears from her eyes. Cancer came and stole him quickly when he was just 50. “It’s amazing how things change.” 

Matt nods. 

“Do you think they’ll ever care, Matt?” She asks. “I mean, the kids and the grandkids, they… they don’t see the value of the past, of the stories we try to tell.”

“Did you like your grandparents’ stories when you were a girl, Kaz?” 

She shakes her head. “No, I suppose not. But I wished I knew them better when they weren’t around anymore.” 

“Then do this,” Matt says. “Write our story. Keep those memories while we’ve got them. And you never know, maybe someday they’ll read them.” 

Karen nods. And that’s what she does for the next year - effectively writes hers and Matt’s memoirs as best she can remember them. They argue on some of the finer points, like who said  _I love you_ first and exactly what colour kilt Matt wore to their wedding (she was right, it was red, he though blue). Once Karen’s done, both she and Matt read over them and have a laugh. Then all of the pictures and DVDs and movies and notebooks full of memories are placed in a box and stored on one of their bookshelves, and opened infrequently. 

It’s Amelia who finds them first when Matt and Karen are both gone. She’s nearly the age Karen was when she and Matt got together, and she looks through the books and pictures and though perhaps she had previously seen her grandparents as dated when she was young, now all of these memories make them seem more human, in a way. 

She passes them on to her mother, Rose, and says, “You should give these a look, mom. They’re fairly fascinating.” 

It’s their story, and it’s a good one, because that’s all that was left of them after a while. 

They did become just stories in the end. 


End file.
